Children Are from Heaven: Positive Parenting Skills for Raising Cooperative, Confident, and Compassionate Children

This brilliantly original and practical system for parenting children is the brainchild of John Gray, whose Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus books and seminars have helped millions of adults communicate more effectively and lovingly with each other. Based on this idea that children respond better to positive rather than negative reinforcement, the Children Are from Heaven program concentrates on rewarding, not punishing, children and fostering their innate desire to please their parents.Central to this approach are the five positive messages your children need to learn again and again:It's okay to be different.It's okay to make mistakes.It's okay to express negative emotions.It's okay to want more.It's okay to say no, but remember Mom and Dad are the bosses.

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CHILDREN
ARE
F R OM
H E AV E N
Positive Parenting Skills for Raising Cooperative,
Confident, and Compassionate Children
ﬂOHN GRAY, Ph.D.
This book is dedicated with greatest love and affection to
my wife, Bonnie Gray. I could not have written this book
without her wisdom and insight. Her love, joy, and light
have not only graced my life, but our children’s as well.
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
xiii
xi
1 Children Are from Heaven
Every Child Has His or Her
Own Unique Problems
2
The Five Messages of Positive Parenting
A Vision of Possibilities
18
1
6
2 What Makes the Five Messages Work
The Pressure of Parenting
22
Reinventing Parenting
23
A Short History of Parenting
25
Violence in, Violence out
27
Why Children Become Unruly and Disruptive
A Global Shift in Consciousness
34
3 New Skills to Create Cooperation
Ask, but Don’t Order or Demand
38
Use “Would You” And Not “Could You”
Give up Rhetorical Questions
43
Be Direct
45
Give up Explanations
46
Give up Giving Lectures
48
Don’t Use Feelings to Manipulate
49
iii
21
31
38
39
iv
Contents
The Magic Word to Create Cooperation
A Short Review and Practice
52
What to Do When Children Resist
54
51
4 New Skills to Minimize Resistance
Four Skills to Minimize Resistance
56
The Four Temperaments
57
Sensitive Children Need
Listening and Understanding
58
Active Children Need
Preparation and Structure
61
Responsive Children Need
Distraction and Direction
66
The Gift of Singing
68
Making Chores Fun
69
The Gift of Reading
71
Using Distraction to Redirect
72
Receptive Children Need Ritual and Rhythm
Loving Rituals
78
Practical Rituals
81
Giving Our Children What They Need
82
5 New Skills for Improving Communication
Why Children Resist
84
Taking Time to Listen
86
The Two Conditions
88
Hard-Love Parenting
90
Soft-Love Parenting
94
Learning to Delay Gratification
98
Meeting Your Children’s Needs
100
6 New Skills for Increasing Motivation
A Short Update on Punishment
103
55
75
83
102
Contents
v
Why and When Punishment Worked
104
The Positive Side of Punishment
106
The Simple Proof 108
The Alternative to Punishment Is Reward
110
The Two Reasons a Child Misbehaves
112
Why Giving Rewards Works
112
Negative Acknowledgments
114
Catching Your Child Being Good
or Doing the Right Thing
117
The Magic of Rewards
119
Why Children Resist Our Direction
120
Understanding Rewards
122
Rewards According to Temperaments
125
Sample Rewards
126
Always Have Something up Your Sleeve
127
A List of Rewards
129
Recurring Patterns
131
Rewarding Teenagers
132
Dealing with a Demanding Child in Public
133
Rewards Are Like Dessert
134
Learning from Natural Consequences
135
The Fear of Rewards
138
7 New Skills for Asserting Leadership
Learning How to Command
141
Don’t Use Emotions to Command
142
It’s Okay to Make Mistakes
143
When Emotions Are not Helpful
144
Yelling Doesn’t Work
145
Make Your Commands Positive
146
Command but Don’t Explain
149
Commanding Teenagers
151
Reasons and Resistance
153
140
vi
Contents
A Better Way of Commanding
Increasing Cooperation
156
Choosing Your Battles
157
155
8 New Skills for Maintaining Control
The Need for Time Out
160
How Negative Feelings Get Released
163
The Ideal Time Out
164
Explaining Time Outs
165
Four Common Mistakes
167
Too Much Time Out
167
Not Enough Time Out
168
Expecting Your Child to Sit Quietly 170
Using Time Out as Punishment
171
Hugging Dad
172
Adjusting Your Will Versus Caving In
173
When to Give Time Out
174
Three Strikes and You Are Out
175
When Time Out Doesn’t Work
176
What Makes the Five Skills Work
177
159
9 It’s Okay to Be Different
180
Gender Differences
182
Different Needs for Trust and Caring
183
Continuing to Trust and Care
185
Boys Are from Mars, Girls Are from Venus
188
Mr. Fix-It
190
Mrs. Home Improvement
192
When Advice Is Good
194
Boys Forget and Girls Remember
195
Different Generations
197
The Culture of Violence
198
Different Temperaments
200
Contents
vii
How Temperaments Transform
201
Afternoon Activities
203
Different Body Types
204
Different Intelligence
206
Academic Intelligence
207
Emotional Intelligence
207
Physical Intelligence
208
Creative Intelligence
208
Artistic Intelligence
209
Common Sense Intelligence
210
Intuitive Intelligence
210
Gifted Intelligence
211
Different Speeds of Learning
213
Good Here but Not Good There
214
Comparing Children
215
10 It’s Okay to Make Mistakes
217
From Innocence to Responsibility
218
Whose Fault Is it Anyway?
223
Learning Responsibility
224
Hardwired to Self-Correct
226
Your Child’s Learning Curve
226
Understanding Repetition
228
Learning from Mistakes
229
Learning to Make Amends
231
Don’t Punish, Make Adjustments
234
How to React When Children Make a Mistake
236
Doing Your Best Is Good Enough 243
When it Is Not Okay to Make Mistakes
246
Hiding Mistakes and Not Telling the Truth
247
Children of Divorced Parents
249
Not Setting High Standards or Taking Risks
250
Justifying Mistakes or Blaming Others
252
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Contents
Teens at Risk
254
Low Self-Esteem and Self-Punishment
256
Making it Okay to Make Mistakes
259
11 It’s Okay to Express Negative Emotions
The Importance of Managing Feelings
262
Learning to Manage Feelings
264
Coping with Loss
266
Why Expressing Emotion Helps
267
The Power of Empathy
269
The Five Second Pause
271
When Children Resist Empathy
274
When Parents Express Negative Emotions
275
The Mistake of Sharing Feelings
278
Asking Children How They Feel
280
What You Suppress, Your Children Will Express
The Black Sheep of the Family
284
Making Negative Emotions Okay
285
12 It’s Okay to Want More
The Fears About Desire
287
The Virtues of Gratitude
289
Permission to Negotiate
291
Learning to Say No
292
Ten Ways to Say No
294
Asking for More
295
Modeling How to Ask
296
The Power of Asking
297
Giving Too Much
299
Children Will Always Want More
300
Children of Divorced Parents
301
The Longing of the Human Spirit
303
261
281
286
Contents
13 It’s Okay to Say No, but Mom
and Dad Are the Bosses
How Parents Affect Their Children
306
Coping with Negative Emotions
307
The Development of Cognitive Abilities
309
Children’s Need for Reassurance
310
Children Have a Different Memory
312
Coping with Increased Will
312
Balancing Freedom and Control 314
Two Problems of Losing Control
316
The Nine-Year Stages of Maturity 317
The Development of Responsibility
319
Understanding the Generation Line
320
Divorce and the Generation Line
323
Controlling Your Preteens and Teens
324
Using the Internet to Improve Communication
Getting Support from Other Parents
328
ix
304
326
14 Putting the Five Messages into Practice
330
Mothers and Daughters
331
Fathers and Daughters
331
Mothers and Sons
332
Fathers and Sons
333
Teens Secretly Appreciate Limits
334
What to Do When Your Child Takes Drugs
337
Dealing with Disrespectful Language
338
Permission to Speak Freely
340
Making Decisions
342
The Cycles of Seven
343
Why Teens Rebel
345
Improving Communication with Teens
347
Respect Your Teen’s Opinions
348
Sending Your Teen Away
351
x
Contents
Instead of “Don’t” Use “I Want”
352
Asking Your Children What They Think
The Challenge of Parenting
355
The Gifts of Greatness
356
About the Author
Credits
Cover
Copyright
About the Publisher
353
Acknowledgments
I thank my wife, Bonnie, and our three daughters, Shannon,
Juliet, and Lauren for their continuous love and support.
Without their direct contributions, this book could not have
been written.
I thank Diane Reverand at HarperCollins for her brilliant
feedback and advice. I also thank Laura Leonard, my dream
publicist, and Carl Raymond, Craig Herman, Matthew Guma,
Mark Landau, Frank Fonchetta, Andrea Cerini, Kate Stark,
Lucy Hood, Anne Gaudinier, and the other incredible staff at
HarperCollins.
I thank my agent, Patti Breitman, for believing in my message and recognizing the value of Men Are from Mars, Women
Are from Venus nine years ago. I thank my international agent,
Linda Michaels, for getting my books published in more than
fifty languages.
I thank my staff: Helen Drake, Bart and Merril Berens,
Pollyanna Jacobs, Ian and Ellen Coren, Sandra Weinstein,
Donna Doiron, Martin and Josie Brown, Bob Beaudry, Michael
Najarian, Jim Puzan, and Ronda Coallier for their consistent
support and hard work. I also thank Matt Jacobs, Sherri Rifkin,
and Kevin Kraynick for their work in making marsvenus.com
one of the best places on the Internet.
I thank my many friends and family members for their
support and helpful suggestions: my brother, Robert Gray, my
sister, Virginia Gray, Clifford McGuire, Jim Kennedy, Alan
xii
Acknowledgments
Garber, Renee Swisco, Robert and Karen Josephson, and
Rami El Batrawi.
I thank the hundreds of workshop facilitators who teach
Mars–Venus workshops throughout the world and the thousands of individuals and couples who have participated in
these workshops during the past fifteen years. I also thank the
Mars–Venus counselors who continue to use these principles
in their counseling practices.
I thank my dear friend, Kaleshwar, for his continued support and assistance.
I thank my mother and father, Virginia and David Gray,
for all their love and support as they gently guided me to be the
best parent I could be. And thanks to Lucile Brixey, who was
like a second mother to guide me and love me.
I give thanks to God for the incredible energy, clarity, and
support I received in bringing forth this book.
—John Gray
June 9, 1999
Introduction
After my first year of marriage, I was the father of a new baby
and had two lovely stepdaughters. Lauren was the baby, Juliet
was eight, and Shannon nearly twelve. Though my new wife
Bonnie was a seasoned parent, this was my first experience.
Having a baby, a child, and a preteen all at once was quite a
challenge. I had taught many workshops with teens and children of all ages. I was very aware of the way children felt about
their parents. I had also counseled thousands of adults, helping
them resolve issues from their childhood. In areas where their
parents’ care was deficient, I taught adults how to heal their
wounds by reparenting themselves. From this unique perspective, I began as a new parent.
At every step of the way, I would find myself automatically
doing things my parents had done. Some things were good,
others were less effective, and some were clearly not good at
all. Based on my own experience of what didn’t work for me
and the thousands of people with whom I had worked, I was
gradually able to find new ways of parenting that were more
effective.
To this day, I can remember one of my first changes.
Shannon and her mother, Bonnie, were arguing. I came downstairs to support Bonnie. At a certain point, I took over and
yelled louder. Within a few minutes, I began to dominate the
argument. Shannon became quiet, holding in her hurt and
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Introduction
resentment. Suddenly, I could see how I was wounding my
new stepdaughter.
In that moment, I realized that what I had done was a
mistake. My behavior was not nurturing. I was behaving as
my dad would when he didn’t know what else to do. I was
yelling and intimidating to regain control. Although I didn’t
know what else to do, I clearly knew that yelling and intimidating was not the answer. From that day on, I never again
yelled at my kids. Eventually, my wife and I were able to
develop other, more nurturing ways to regain control when
our children misbehaved.
LOVE IS NOT ENOUGH
I am very thankful to my parents for their love and support,
which helped me enormously, but, in many ways, in spite of
the love, I was wounded by some of their mistakes. Healing
those wounds has made me a better parent. I know they did
their best with the limited knowledge they had regarding
what children needed. When parents make mistakes in parenting, it is not because they don’t love their children, but
because they just don’t know a better way.
The most important part of parenting is love and putting
in time and energy to support your children. Although love
is the most important requirement, it is not enough. Unless
parents understand their children’s unique needs, they are
unable to give their children what children today need.
Parents may be giving love, but not in ways that are most
helpful to their child’s development.
Without an understanding of their children’s
needs, parents cannot effectively support
their children.
Introduction
xv
On the other hand, some parents are “willing” to spend
more time with their children, but don’t because they don’t
know what to do or their children reject their efforts. So
many parents try to talk with their kids, but their kids just
close up and say nothing. These parents are willing, but
don’t know how to get their kids to talk.
Some parents don’t want to yell at, hit, or punish their
children, but they just don’t know another way. Since talking with their children has not worked, punishment or the
threat of punishment is the only way they know.
To give up old ways of parenting, new ways
must be employed.
Talking will work, but you have to learn first what children need. You have to learn how to listen so that children
will want to talk to you. You have to learn how to ask so
that children will want to cooperate. You have to learn how
to give your children increasing freedom and yet maintain
control. When a parent learns these skills, he or she can let
go of outdated methods of parenting.
FINDING A BETTER WAY
As a counselor to thousands and teacher to hundreds of thousands, I was aware of what parenting behaviors didn’t work,
but I didn’t yet know more effective solutions. To be a better
parent, it was not enough just to stop doing things like punishing or yelling to control my children. To give up manipulating my children with the threat of punishment to maintain
control, I had to find other equally effective methods. In developing the philosophy of Children Are from Heaven and the
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Introduction
five skills of positive parenting, I gradually discovered an effective alternative to traditional parenting skills.
To be a better parent, it is not enough to
stop doing things that don’t work.
The skills of positive parenting contained in Children Are
from Heaven took me more than thirty years to develop. For
sixteen years as a counselor of adults with individual and
relationship problems, I had a chance to study what didn’t
work in my clients’ childhoods. Then, as a parent, during the
next fourteen years I began to develop and use new and different parenting skills. These new insights and skills have not
only worked in raising my own children, but also in thousands of other families.
Marge, a single parent, began using these skills with her
oldest teenager daughter, Sarah, who wouldn’t even talk
with her and was on the verge of leaving home. When
Marge shifted the way she communicated, they were able to
resolve their issues. Sarah changed literally overnight. Before
Marge took a Children Are from Heaven workshop, Sarah
would scowl when her mother talked. Within a few months
after the workshop, Sarah was talking about her life, listening, and cooperating with her mother.
Tim and Carol had difficulty with their youngest son,
Kevin, who was three. He was always acting out, throwing
tantrums, and controlling situations. By giving up spanking and
using time outs instead, Kevin gradually had fewer tantrums.
Tim and Carol learned how to regain control in their family by
understanding how to nurture Kevin’s unique needs.
Philip was a successful businessman. After taking a
Children Are from Heaven workshop, he realized how much
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xvii
his children needed him, and what he could do to assist
them in growing up. He had been raised mainly by his
mother and didn’t really know how much a father was
needed. Once he learned what his children needed and what
he could do, he was motivated to spend more time with his
kids. He is grateful for this new information, not just
because his children are happier, but because he is happier.
He was missing out on the joys of parenthood and he didn’t
even know it.
Many men who are not involved in parenting
don’t realize the joys they are missing.
Tom and Karen were always fighting about how to raise
their children. Since they were raised differently, they would
argue about how to discipline or raise their children. After
taking a Children Are from Heaven workshop, they had a
common approach to raising their kids. The children not
only benefited from more effective support, but also because
their parents stopped fighting all the time.
There are endless stories of families who have benefited
from the new insights and skills of Children Are from Heaven.
If you have any doubts regarding their validity, just try them
and see the results. The effectiveness of these skills is easy to
prove. As you begin to use them, they work immediately.
The effectiveness of these skills is easy to
prove. Use them; they work immediately.
Each suggestion in Children Are from Heaven simply
makes sense. In many cases, your experience of reading
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Introduction
Children Are from Heaven will clarify what you already felt
was true or right for you. In other cases, these new insights
will point out where you have made some mistakes and
answer many of your questions. Although Children Are
from Heaven does not deal with every problem you will
encounter, it provides a whole new approach for problem
solving. You still solve the problems, but with a different
and more effective approach. This new way of understanding children will assist you in coming up with your own
unique day-to-day solutions.
Children Are from Heaven is a broad practical philosophy of parenting that works at every age. The new insights
and skills work for infants, toddlers, young children, preteens, and teens. Even if your teens were not raised with
these skills, they will quickly begin to respond to them.
Children Are from Heaven is a broad
practical philosophy of parenting that works
at every age.
In my own experience, I found that my two stepdaughters responded immediately to this new nonpunishing
approach. Even though they had been raised with some of
the old methods, like punishment or yelling, the new
approach was effective. Children at any age, regardless of
their past, begin to cooperate more as a result of using these
new skills.
These techniques work even when children have been
raised with neglect, abuse, or cruel punishment. Certainly,
neglected or abused children may have unique behavioral
problems, but these are more effectively corrected or solved
as soon as this new approach is employed. Children are
Introduction
xix
incredibly resilient and adaptable when given the right kind
of loving support.
THE NEW CRISIS OF PARENTING
The Western free world is experiencing a crisis in parenting.
Every day, there are increasing reports of child and teen violence, low self-esteem, Attention Deficit Disorder, drug use,
teen pregnancy, and suicide. Almost all parents today are
questioning both the new and old ways of parenting.
Nothing seems to be working, and our children’s problems
continue to increase.
Some parents believe that these problems come from
being too permissive and giving children too much, while
others contend that outdated practices of parenting, like
spanking and yelling, are responsible. Others believe these
new problems are caused by negative changes in society.
Too much TV, advertising, or too much violence and sex
on TV and in movies are pegged by many as the culprits.
Certainly society and how it influences our children is part
of the problem, and some helpful solutions can be legislated
by the government, but the biggest part of the problem starts
at home. Our children’s problems begin in the home and can
be solved at home. Besides looking to change society, parents must also realize that they hold the power to raise
strong, confident, cooperative, and compassionate children.
Our children’s problems begin in the home,
and can be solved at home.
To cope with changes in society, parents need to change
their parenting approach. During the past two hundred
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Introduction
years, society has made an historic and dramatic change
toward greater individual freedom and rights. Even though
our modern Western society is now organized by the principles of freedom and human rights, parents still use parenting
skills from the Dark Ages.
Parents need to update their parenting skills to raise
healthy and cooperative children and teens. Businesses know
that if they are to stay competitive in the free market, they
need to keep changing and updating. Likewise, if parents
want their children to be able to compete in the free world,
they must prepare their children with the most effective and
modern approaches to parenting.
LOVE- VERSUS FEAR-BASED PARENTING
In the past, children where controlled by dominance, fear,
and guilt. To motivate good behavior, children were made to
believe they were bad and unworthy of good treatment if
they were not obedient. The fear of losing love and privileges
was a strong deterrent. When this didn’t work, stronger
punishment was given to generate even more fear and to
break the will of a child. An unruly child was often called
strong-willed. Ironically, from the perspective of positive
parenting, nurturing a strong will is the basis of creating
confidence, cooperation, and compassion in children.
Nurturing and not breaking a child’s will is
the basis of creating confidence, cooperation,
and compassion in children.
Past parenting approaches sought to create obedient
children. The goal of positive parenting is to create strong-
Introduction
xxi
willed but cooperative children. A child’s will doesn’t have
to be broken in order to create cooperation. Children are
from heaven. When their hearts are open and their will is
nurtured, they actually are more willing to cooperate.
The goal of positive parenting is to create
willful but cooperative children.
Past parenting approaches were aimed at creating good
children. Positive parenting creates compassionate children,
who don’t have to be threatened to follow rules, but spontaneously act and make decisions from an open heart. They do
not lie or cheat because it is against the rules, but they are
fair and just. Morality is not imposed on these children from
outside, but emerges from within and is learned by cooperating with their parents.
Rather than seeking to create good children,
positive parenting seeks to create
compassionate children.
Past parenting approaches focused on creating submission;
positive parenting aims to develop confident leaders, who are
capable of creating their own destiny, not just passively following in the footsteps of others before them. These confident
children are aware of who they are and what they want to
accomplish.
Confident children are not easily swayed by peer
pressure nor do they feel the need to rebel.
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Introduction
These strong children are not easily swayed by peer pressure nor do they feel a need to rebel in order to be themselves. They think for themselves, yet remain open to the
assistance and help of their parents. As adults, they are not
held back by the limited beliefs of others. They follow an
inner compass and make decisions for themselves.
CHILDREN TODAY ARE DIFFERENT
Just as the world today is different, our children are different.
They no longer respond to fear-based parenting. The old fearbased approaches actually weaken a parent’s control. The
threat of punishment only turns children against their parents
and causes them to rebel. The intimidation of yelling and
spanking no longer creates control, but simply numbs a child’s
willingness to listen and cooperate. Parents are seeking better
communication with their children to prepare them for the
increased pressures of life today but, unfortunately, they are
still using outdated approaches for parenting.
The threat of punishment only turns children
against their parents and causes them to rebel.
I remember my dad making this mistake. He would try to
control his six boys and one daughter with threats of punishment. He had been a sergeant in the military, and this was the
only way he knew. In some ways, he treated us like army privates. Whenever we would resist his control, he would regain
control with the threat of punishment. Though this parenting
style worked to some degree in his generation, it didn’t work
for mine, and it clearly is not working for our children today.
When his threat didn’t result in obedience, my father
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xxiii
would increase the threat. He would say, “If you keep talking to me like that, you are grounded for a week.”
When I continued to resist, he would say, “If you don’t
stop, it will be two weeks.”
When I persisted, he would say, “Okay then, you are
grounded for one month, now go to your room.”
Upping the punishment has no real positive effect and
only engenders greater resentment. For the whole month, I
just reflected on how unfair he was. Instead of increasing my
willingness to cooperate, his action pushed me farther away.
He would have had a much more positive influence if he had
just said, “Since you are not respecting what I am saying, I
want you to take a time out for ten minutes.”
Punishment in the past was used to break a strong-willed
child. Although it may have worked to create obedience, it
doesn’t work today. Children are now more sophisticated
and aware. They recognize what is unfair and abusive and
will not tolerate it. They will resent and rebel. Most importantly, punishment and the threat of punishment break
down the lines of communication. Instead of being a part of
the solution, you the parent become a part of the problem.
Punishment makes you, the parent, an enemy
to hide from instead of a parent to turn to
for support.
When parents yell at children, it just numbs their ability
to hear. To succeed in school and, more importantly, to compete in the free market or experience success in a lasting
relationship, adults today need better communication skills.
These skills are most effectively learned when children listen
to their parents and parents listen to their children.
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Introduction
Children listen to their parents when parents
learn how to listen to their children.
What happens when you listen to music at loud levels?
You lose your hearing. The same thing happens when parents yell or make demands all the time. When parents today
yell or communicate the way their parents did, it has a different effect. Children today will just be turned off, and parents will lose control.
GIVING UP PUNISHMENT
In previous generations, societies were suppressed, controlled, and manipulated by strong, punishing dictators, but
it is not so today. People will not stand for injustice and the
violation of human rights; they will revolt instead. People
have sacrificed their lives for the principles of democracy.
In a similar way, children today will not accept the
threat of punishment. They will revolt. Children today feel
more intensely the injustice of punishment. When punishment goes in, it comes back out as increased resistance,
resentment, rejection, and rebellion. Children today are
rejecting their parents’ values and rebelling against parental
control at younger and younger ages.
Before they are psychologically mature or prepared to let
go of their parents’ support, children and teens are pulling
away and rejecting the support that is so important for their
development. They long to be free of their parents’ control
at a time when they need that control to develop in a healthy
manner.
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xxv
Before they are psychologically prepared,
children and teens are rejecting necessary
parental support.
Many parents recognize that the old methods of punishment don’t work, but they just don’t know another way. They
hold back from punishing, but that doesn’t work either.
Permissive parenting doesn’t give children the parental control
they need. When given an inch of power, these children take a
mile. Children quickly learn to use their freedom to manipulate and control parents.
When children are allowed to use strong, negative
moods, feelings, and tantrums to get their way, they are in
control. When a child is in control, they are out of their parents’ control. In many ways, they will develop some of the
same problems of children who are raised with outdated
fear-based skills.
When children are in control, they are out of
their parents’ control.
Whether a child is raised with fear-based skills or permissive skills, if the child doesn’t experience that his parents
are in control, he will rebel or reject any attempts a parent
makes to regain or maintain control. Disconnected from his
parents’ support, his development will be restricted. By
using the skills of positive parenting in Children Are from
Heaven, parents can give their children the freedom and
leadership they need to develop a strong and healthy sense
of self.
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Introduction
THE RESULTS OF FEAR-BASED PARENTING
The old fear-based practices of managing our children
through intimidation, criticism, disapproval, and punishment have not only lost their power but are counterproductive. Children are more sensitive than in previous generations. They are capable of much more, but are also influenced
in a negative way by old parenting skills like yelling, spanking, hitting, punishing, grounding, disapproving, humiliating, and shaming. When children were more thick-skinned,
these approaches were useful, but today they are outdated
and counterproductive.
In the past, punishing children by spanking made them
fear authority and follow the rules. Today it has the opposite
effect. Violence in means violence out. This is a symptom of
being more sensitive. Children today can be more creative
and intelligent than in previous generations, but they are
also more influenced by outer conditions.
When children are more sensitive, violence in
means violence out.
Children today can best learn to respect others, not by
fear tactics, but through imitation. Children are programmed
to imitate their parents. Their minds are always taking pictures and making recordings to mimic and follow whatever
you say or do. They practically learn everything through imitation and cooperation.
When parents model respectful behavior, children gradually learn how to respect others. When parents learn how to
remain cool, calm, and loving while dealing with a child
throwing a tantrum, that child gradually learns how to
remain cool, calm, and loving when strong feelings come up.
Introduction
xxvii
Parents can stay calm, cool, loving, and respectful when they
learn what to do when children go out of control.
Parents can stay calm and cool when
they learn what to do when children go
out of control.
If you hit children to regain control, children learn that
aggression is the answer when they feel out of control. Many
times I have witnessed a mother hitting her son, saying,
“Stop hitting your brother.” She wants him to understand
how it feels, but hitting is not the answer. By hitting her son,
she reinforces his tendency to hit or use aggression.
Later on, when he is not getting what he wants, he will
automatically resort to acting out his anger by either direct or
passive aggression. Although spanking or hitting children
worked in the past, it backfires today. Fear-based parenting
methods restrict our children’s natural development and make
our job as parents less fulfilling and more time consuming.
NOT ENOUGH TIME TO PARENT
Parents today have less time than ever to devote to parenting. For this reason, it is essential that they learn what is
most important for their children. This knowledge not only
helps them to use their time more efficiently, but also motivates them to create more time. A greater awareness of their
children’s needs naturally motivates parents to spend more
time with their children.
In dealing with stress and pressure, many adults often
devote time to what they feel they have to do and can do.
Women commonly feel overwhelmed with all the things they
xxviii
Introduction
have to do. Men feel primarily focused on what they can do.
When fathers don’t know what they can do to help their
children, they often do nothing. When mothers are not
aware of what their children need, they often make others
things more important.
When parents learn what their children really need, they
are less motivated to create money to acquire things and
more motivated to create time to enjoy their family. The
greatest wealth for a parent today is time. Parents begin to
find more time to be with their children when they recognize
what they have to do and can do.
UPDATING YOUR PARENTING SKILLS
By reading Children Are from Heaven, you will learn practical ways to update your parenting skills. You will not only
learn what doesn’t work, but what you can do instead. You
will learn new ways of motivating your children to cooperate and excel without having to use fear tactics.
Children today do not need to be motivated by the fear
of punishment. They have the innate ability to know what is
right and wrong when given an opportunity to develop this
ability. Instead of being motivated by punishment or intimidation, they can be easily motivated by reward and the natural, healthy desire to please their parents.
In the first eight chapters of Children Are from Heaven,
you will learn to use the different skills of positive parenting
to improve communication, increase cooperation, and motivate your children to be all they can be. In last six chapters,
you will learn how to communicate the five most important
messages your children need to hear again and again.
The five positive messages are:
Introduction
xxix
1. It’s okay to be different.
2. It’s okay to make mistakes.
3. It’s okay to express negative emotions.
4. It’s okay to want more.
5. It’s okay to say no, but remember mom and dad are
the bosses.
These five messages will set your children free to develop
their God-given abilities. When practiced correctly with the
different skills of positive parenting, your child will develop
the necessary skills for successful living. Some of these skills
are: forgiveness of others and themselves, sharing, delayed
gratification, self-esteem, patience, persistence, respect for others and themselves, cooperation, compassion, confidence, and
the ability to be happy. With this new approach, along with
your love and support, your children will have the opportunity
to develop fully during each stage of their growth.
With these new insights, you will have the confidence
needed to raise your children well and to sleep soundly at
night. When questions and confusion arise, you will have a
powerful resource to return to again and again to give you
support and to remind you of what your children need and
what you can do for them.
Most of all, you remember that children are from heaven.
They already have within them what they need to grow. Your
job as parent is only to support their process of growth. By
applying the five messages and positive-parenting skills, you
will not only enjoy the confidence that you doing exactly what
is needed, but know that, with your help, your children will be
able to create the life they were meant to live.
1
Children Are
from Heaven
All children are born innocent and good. In this sense our
children are from heaven. Each and every child is already
unique and special. They enter this world with their own
particular destiny. An apple seed naturally becomes an apple
tree. It cannot produce pears or oranges. As parents, our
most important role is to recognize, honor, and then nurture
our child’s natural and unique growth process. We are not
required in any way to mold them into who we think they
should be. Yet we are responsible to support them wisely in
ways that draw out their individual gifts and strengths.
Our children do not need us to fix them or make them
better, but they are dependent on our support to grow. We
provide the fertile ground for their seeds of greatness to
sprout. They have the power to do the rest. Within an apple
seed is the perfect blueprint for its growth and development.
Likewise, within the developing mind, heart, and body of
every child is the perfect blueprint for that child’s development. Instead of thinking that we must do something to
make our children good, we must recognize that our children are already good.
1
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John Gray
Within the developing mind, heart, and body
of every child is the perfect blueprint for that
child’s development.
As parents we must remember that Mother Nature is
always responsible for our children’s growth and development. Once, when I asked my mother the secret of her parenting approach, she responded this way: “While raising six boys
and one girl, I eventually discovered there was little that I
could do to alter them. I realized it was all in God’s hands. I did
my best and God did the rest.” This realization allowed her to
trust the natural growth process. It not only made the process
easier for her, but also helped her to not get in the way. This
insight is important for every parent. If one doesn’t believe in
God, one can just substitute “genes”—It’s all in the genes.
By applying positive-parenting skills, parents can learn to
support their children’s natural growth process and to avoid
interfering. Without an understanding of how children naturally develop, parents commonly experience unnecessary frustration, disappointment, worry, and guilt and unknowingly
block or inhibit parts of their children’s development. For
example, when a parent doesn’t understand a child’s unique
sensitivity, not only is the parent more frustrated, but the child
gets the message something is wrong with him. This mistaken
belief, “something is wrong with me,” becomes imprinted in
the child and the gifts that come from increased sensitivity are
restricted.
EVERY CHILD HAS HIS OR HER OWN UNIQUE PROBLEMS
Besides being born innocent and good, every child comes
into this world with his or her own unique problems. As
Children Are from Heaven
3
parents, our role is to help children face their unique challenges. I grew up in a family of seven children and, although
we had the same parents and the same opportunities, all
seven children turned out completely different. I now have
three daughters ages twenty-five, twenty-two, and thirteen.
Each one is, and has always been, completely different, with
a different set of strengths and weaknesses.
As parents, we can help our children, but we cannot take
away their unique problems and challenges. With this insight,
we can worry less, instead of focusing on changing them or
solving their problems. Trusting more helps the parent as well
as the child. We can let our children be themselves and focus
more on helping them grow in reaction to life’s challenges.
When parents respond to their children from a more relaxed
and trusting place, children have a greater opportunity to trust
in themselves, their parents, and the unknown future.
Each child has his or her own personal destiny. Accepting
this reality reassures parents and helps them to relax and not
take responsibility for every problem a child has. Too much
time and energy is wasted trying to figure out what we could
have done wrong or what our children should have done
instead of accepting that all children have issues, problems,
and challenges. Our job as parents is to help our children face
and cope with them successfully. Always remember that our
children have their own set of challenges and gifts, and there is
nothing we can do to alter who they are. Yet we can make sure
that we give them the opportunities to become the best they
can be.
Children have their own set of challenges and
gifts, and there is nothing we can do to alter
who they are.
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John Gray
At difficult times, when we begin to think something is
wrong with our children, we must come back to remembering that they are from heaven. They are perfect the way they
are and have their own unique challenges in life. They not
only need our compassion and help, but they also need their
challenges. Their unique obstacles to overcome are actually
necessary for them to become all that they can become. The
problems they face will assist them in finding the support
they need and in developing their special character.
Children need compassion and help, but they
also need their unique challenges to grow.
For every child, the healthy process of growing up means
there will be challenging times. By learning to accept and
embrace the limitations imposed by their parents and the
world, children can learn such essential life skills as forgiveness, delayed gratification, acceptance, cooperation, creativity,
compassion, courage, persistence, self-correction, self-esteem,
self-sufficiency, and self-direction. For example:
• Children cannot learn to be forgiving unless there is
someone to forgive.
• Children cannot develop patience or learn to delay
gratification if everything comes their way when they
want it.
• Children cannot learn to accept their own imperfections
if everyone around them is perfect.
• Children cannot learn to cooperate if everything always
goes their way.
Children Are from Heaven
5
• Children cannot learn to be creative if everything is
done for them.
• Children cannot learn compassion and respect unless
they also feel pain and loss.
• Children cannot learn courage and optimism unless they
are faced with adversity.
• Children cannot develop persistence and strength if
everything is easy.
• Children cannot learn to self-correct unless they
experience difficulty, failure, or mistakes.
• Children cannot feel self-esteem or healthy pride unless
they overcome obstacles to achieve something.
• Children cannot develop self-sufficiency unless they
experience exclusion or rejection.
• Children cannot be self-directed unless they have
opportunities to resist authority and/or not get what
they want.
In a variety of ways, challenge and growing pains are
not only inevitable, but also necessary. As parents, our job is
not to protect our children from life’s challenges but to help
them successfully overcome them and grow. Throughout
Children Are from Heaven you will learn new positive parenting skills to assist your children in responding to life’s
challenges and setbacks. If you are always solving their
problems, they do not find within themselves their innate
abilities and skills.
Life’s obstacles can occur to strengthen your children in
unique ways and draw out the best in them. When a butter-
6
John Gray
fly emerges from its cocoon, there is a great struggle. If you
were to cut open the cocoon in order to spare the new butterfly this struggle, it would soon die. The struggle to get out
is needed to build the wing muscles. Without the struggle,
the butterfly will never fly, but will die instead. In a similar
way, for our children to grow strong and fly free in this
world, they need particular kinds of struggle and a particular kind of support.
To overcome their unique challenges, every child needs a
particular kind of love and support. Without this support,
their problems will become magnified and distorted, sometimes to the point of mental disease and criminal behavior.
Our job as parents is to support our children in special ways
so that our children become stronger and healthier. If we
interfere and make it too easy, we weaken children, but, if
we make it too tough and don’t help enough, then we
deprive them of what they need to grow. Children cannot do
it alone. A child cannot grow up and develop all the skills
for successful living without the help of their parents.
THE FIVE MESSAGES OF POSITIVE PARENTING
There are five important positive messages to help your children find within themselves the power to meet life’s challenges and develop their full inner potential. Throughout
Children Are from Heaven, we will explore a variety of new
parenting skills based on communicating each of these five
messages. The five messages are:
1. It’s okay to be different.
2. It’s okay to make mistakes.
3. It’s okay to express negative emotions.
Children Are from Heaven
7
4. It’s okay to want more.
5. It’s okay to say no, but remember mom and dad are the
bosses.
Let’s explore each of these messages in greater detail.
1. It’s okay to be different. All children are unique. They
have their own special gifts, challenges, and needs. As parents, our job is to be able to recognize what their special
needs are and to nurture them. Boys in general will have special needs that are not as important for girls. Likewise, girls
will have needs that may not be that important for boys. In
addition, every child regardless of gender has special needs
associated with his or her particular challenges and gifts.
Children are also different in the way they learn. It is essential for parents to understand this difference, otherwise they
may begin comparing children and become unnecessarily frustrated. When it comes to learning a task, there are three kinds
of children: runners, walkers, and jumpers. Runners learn very
quickly. Walkers learn in a steady manner and give clear feedback that they are making progress. Finally, there are the
jumpers. Jumpers tend to be more difficult to raise. They don’t
seem to be learning anything or making any progress, and then
one day they make one jump and have it. Jumpers are like late
bloomers. Learning takes more time for them.
Parents learn the importance of expressing love in genderspecific ways. For example, girls often need more caring, but
too much caring can make a boy feel as if you don’t trust him.
Boys need more trust, though too much trust for a girl may be
interpreted as not caring enough. Fathers mistakenly tend to
give their daughters what boys need, while mothers mistakenly
tend to give boys the support girls would need. Understanding
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John Gray
how boys and girls have different needs helps parents be more
successful in nurturing their children. In addition, mothers and
fathers argue less about each other’s parenting style. Daddies
Are from Mars and Mommies Are from Venus.
2. It’s okay to make mistakes. All children make mistakes. It is perfectly normal and to be expected. Making a
mistake does not mean something is wrong with you, unless
your parents react as if you should not have made a mistake.
Mistakes are natural, normal, and to be expected. The way
children learn this is primarily by example. Parents can most
effectively teach this principle by making sure they acknowledge their own mistakes in dealing with and supporting their
children and each other.
When children see their parents apologizing on a regular
basis, they gradually learn to be accountable for their own
mistakes. Instead of teaching children to apologize, parents
demonstrate. Children learn from role models not by lectures. Not only do children learn to be more responsible,
but, by repeatedly forgiving their parents for their mistakes,
children gradually learn the important skill of forgiveness.
Children come into this world with the ability to love their
parents, but they cannot love or forgive themselves. They learn
to love themselves by the way they are treated by their parents
and how their parents react when they make mistakes. When
children are not shamed or punished for their mistakes, they
have a better chance to learn the most important skill: the ability to love themselves and accept their imperfections.
This skill is learned by repeatedly experiencing that their
parents make mistakes and are still lovable. Shaming or
punishing prevents children from developing self-love or the
ability to forgive themselves. Throughout Children Are from
Heaven, parents learn effective alternatives to spanking,
Children Are from Heaven
9
shaming, and punishing that involve new ways of asking
instead of ordering, giving rewards instead of punishments,
giving time outs instead of spanking. These new positive
parenting skills are described in greater detail through chapters 3 through 8. A time out, if given correctly and persistently, is just as powerful a deterrent as spanking and punishment.
3. It’s okay to have negative emotions. Such negative
emotions as anger, sadness, fear, sorrow, frustration, disappointment, worry, embarrassment, jealousy, hurt, insecurity,
and shame are not only natural and normal, but an important part of growing up. Negative emotions are always okay
and they need to be communicated.
Parents must learn to create appropriate opportunities for
children to feel and express their negative emotions. Although
negative emotions are always okay, how, when, and where our
children express them is not always appropriate. Tantrums are
an important part of a children’s development, but they need
to learn the time and place. On the other hand, you must make
sure that you are not placating a child to avoid a tantrum, otherwise tantrums will come out when you don’t have an opportunity to give your child a time out and deal with the problem
at hand more effectively.
New communication skills must be learned and practiced
to increase children’s awareness of what they are feeling, otherwise they will go out of control, resist your authority, and act
out on pent-up feelings. In this book, parents will learn to deal
effectively with their own upset feelings. What parents suppress, their children will express in addition to their own upset
feelings. This principle explains why children lose control at
the most inconvenient times, particularly at stressful and overwhelming times when we are trying to keep a lid on our own
10
John Gray
feelings.
Positive parenting involves not making children responsible for how parents feel. When children get the message
that their feelings and the needs for understanding and affection underlying those feelings are an inconvenience, they will
begin to suppress their feelings and disconnect from their
true self and all the gifts that come from being authentic.
“Enlightened” parents, who recognize the importance of
feelings, often make the mistake of teaching their children to
feel by sharing their own emotions too much. The best way
to teach awareness of feelings is to listen and help identify
feelings with empathy. Parents can best share their own negative feelings by telling stories of how they felt growing up in
reaction to some of their challenges in life. The downside of
sharing your own negative feelings with your children is that
it makes children overly responsible. These children assume
too much blame and disconnect from their own inner feelings. They eventually pull away and stop talking to you.
For example, telling a child, “When you climb that tree,
I am afraid you will fall” has the gradual effect of making
the child feel manipulated and controlled by negative feelings. Instead, an adult should say, “Climbing trees is not
completely safe. I only want you to climb when I am
around.” This is not only more effective, but it also teaches
children not to make decisions based on negative emotions.
The child cooperates not to protect the parent from the discomfort of feeling afraid, but because the parent has asked
them to do something.
Parents can help their children develop an increased
awareness of feelings by empathizing, acknowledging, and listening, not by sharing their own feelings. Sometimes, even
directly asking children how they feel or what they want may
give them too much power. New listening skills must be used
to draw out feelings and to understand a young child’s want
Children Are from Heaven
11
and needs. “Permissive” parents will learn how not to be ruled
by or manipulated by children’s wants and feelings. “Demanding” parents will learn the many ways they unknowingly
shame their children for having negative feelings.
By learning to feel and communicate negative emotions,
children most effectively learn to individuate from their parents, developing a strong sense of self, and gradually discover
within themselves a wealth of inner creativity, intuition, love,
direction, confidence, joy, compassion, conscience, and the
ability to self-correct after making a mistake. All these
advanced life skills, which make a person shine out in this
world and achieve great success and fulfillment, come from
staying in touch with feelings and being able to let go of negative feelings. Successful people feel their losses, but they
bounce back because they have the ability to let go of negative
feelings. Most people who do not achieve personal success are
either numb to their inner feelings, make decisions based on
negative feelings, or just remain stuck in negative feelings and
attitudes. In each case, they are held back from making their
dreams come true.
4. It’s okay to want more. Too often children get the
message that they are wrong, selfish, or spoiled for wanting
more or for getting upset when they don’t get what they
want. Parents are too quick to teach the virtues of gratitude
instead of giving their children permission to want more.
“Be grateful for what you have” is too quick a reply to a
child’s desire for more.
Children don’t know how much is acceptable to ask for
and should never be expected to know. Even as adults, we
still have difficulty determining how much we can ask for
without offending or appearing too demanding or ungrateful. If adults have difficulty, then clearly we should not
expect our children not to.
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John Gray
Positive parenting skills teach children how to ask for
what they want in ways that are respectful to others. At the
same time, parents will learn how to say no without getting
upset. Children will feel free to ask for what they want,
knowing that they will not be shamed. They will also recognize that just because they ask doesn’t mean they will get
what they want.
Unless they are free to ask for what they want, children
never clearly learn what they can get and what they can’t. In
addition, by asking for what they want, they quickly
develop incredible negotiating skills. Most adults are very
poor negotiators. They don’t ask unless they expect a yes. If
they get a no, they usually just accept it and walk away
either submissive, secretly resentful, or outwardly angry.
When given the freedom to ask for what they want, children’s inner power to get what they want has a chance to
blossom. As adults they will not take no for an answer. As
children, they learn to negotiate and will often motivate you
to give them what they want. There is big difference between
being manipulated by a whiny child and being motivated by
a brilliant negotiator. Positive parents do maintain control
throughout every negotiation and clearly set limits on how
long it can go on.
By giving your child permission to ask for more, you give
that child the gift of direction purpose, and power in life. Too
many women today feel powerless, because they were never
given permission to ask for more. They were taught to care
more about what others needed and shamed for getting upset
when they didn’t get what they wanted or needed.
One the most important skills a father or mother can
teach a girl is how to ask for more. Most women did not
learn this lesson as children. Instead of asking for more, they
Children Are from Heaven
13
indirectly ask for more by giving more and hoping someone
will give back to them without their having to ask. This
inability to ask directly prevents them from getting what
they want in life and in their relationships.
While girls need permission to want more, boys need a
particular kind of support when they don’t get more. Quite
often a boy will set his goals really high, and parents will try
to talk him out of his goals, because they want to protect
him from being disappointed. They do not realize that more
important than achieving goals is being able to cope with
disappointment so that he can rise again to move toward his
goals. Just as girls need a lot of support in asking for what
they want, boys need extra support to identify their feelings
and move through them. For boys, this is best accomplished
by asking for details of what happened while being
extremely careful not to offer any advice or “help.” Even
too much empathy can turn him off to talking about what
happened.
Mothers often make the mistake of asking too many questions. When pushed to talk, many boys stop. When given suggestions on how to cope, boys particularly will back off. At a
time when he already feels beaten, he doesn’t need someone to
make him feel worse by telling him how to solve the problem
or what he did to contribute to the problem.
For example, he feels disappointed that he didn’t score
well on a test and his mother says, in a caring way, “I think
that if you would have watched less TV and taken more time
to study then you would have done better. You are really
smart, you are just not giving yourself a chance.” Clearly she
thinks she is being loving, but in this context it is clear why he
would stop revealing to her what is bothering him. She has
offered unsolicited advice, and he feels both criticized and not
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John Gray
trusted to solve his problem.
5. It’s okay to say no, but remember mom and dad are
the bosses. Children need permission to say no, but, just as
important, they need to know that their parents are in
charge. Besides giving children permission to want more and
to negotiate, the permission to say no really gives them
power. Most parents are afraid of giving children that much
power because they may easily become spoiled. One of the
biggest problems today with children is that they have been
given too much freedom. Parents have sensed that their children deserve more power, but they have not learned how to
remain the boss. Unless they employ other positive parenting
techniques like consistent time outs to maintain cooperation, their children become too demanding, selfish, and irritable. When parents remain in control, it is then effective to
give their children more power.
Letting children say no opens the door for them to
express feelings and to discover what they want and then
negotiate. It does not mean you will always do what the
child wants. Even though children can say no, it doesn’t
mean they will get their way. What children feel and want
will be heard and this in itself often makes them much more
cooperative. More importantly, it allows children to be
cooperative without having to suppress their true self.
There is a big difference between adjusting your wants and
denying your wants. Adjusting your wants means shifting
what you want to what your parents want. Denying means
suppressing your wants and feelings and submitting to your
parents wants. Submission results in a breaking of the child’s
will. After a horse is broken, it becomes submissive and thus
cooperative, but it also loses a big part of its free spirit.
Analysis of parenting practices in pre-Nazi Germany
Children Are from Heaven
15
revealed that children were severely shamed and punished
for resisting authority. They had no permission to resist or
say no. In retrospect, we can see clearly on a much bigger
scale how breaking the will of your children can make them
mindless and heartless followers of strong but maniacal
authoritarian leaders. When a person does not have a strong
sense of self, he is easy prey for others to manipulate and
abuse. Without a strong sense of self, a person will even be
attracted to abusive relationships and situations, because of
feelings of unworthiness and fear of asserting his own will.
Adjusting one’s will and wish is called cooperation, submitting one’s will and wish is obedience. Positive parenting
practices seek to create cooperative children not obedient
children. It is not healthy for children to follow their parents’ will mindlessly or heartlessly. Giving children permission to feel and verbalize their resistance when it occurs not
only helps children develop a sense of self, but also makes
children more cooperative. Obedient children just follow
orders; they do not think, feel, or contribute to the process.
Cooperative children bring their full self to every interaction
and thus are able to thrive.
Positive parenting practices seek to create
cooperative children, not obedient children.
Cooperative children may still want what they want, but
what they want most is to please their parents. Giving children permission to say no does not mean giving them more
control; it actually gives the parent more control. Each time
children resist and the parents maintain control, the children
are able to experience that mom and dad are the bosses.
This is the main reason that giving children a time out is so
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John Gray
valuable.
When children are misbehaving or not cooperating, they
are simply out of control. They are out of your control.
They are not in cooperation with your will and wish. To
restore cooperation, a parent needs to regain control of
them through picking them up and moving them into a time
out. God makes children little so that we can pick them up
and move them.
In a time out children have the freedom to resist and
express all their feelings, but they are still restricted to a time
out for a set time. Generally speaking, all that a child needs is
one minute for every year of his or her life. A four year old
only needs four minutes. The containment of a time out is all
that is required for children to feel once again the security of
being under your control and connected to you as the boss.
Automatically, the negative feelings lift off, and the child
reconnects to the healthy desire to please and cooperate.
Parents who are too permissive or don’t give their children enough time outs unknowingly make their children
more insecure. The child begins to feel they have the power
to control and, because they are not ready to be in charge
(although they like the power), they feel insecure. Imagine
being given the responsibility to hire two hundred workers
to build a building in six months. Or, imagine that you were
handed a bleeding person recently shot with a gun and
asked to operate on him and to remove the bullet. If you
were not trained for either of these jobs, you would suddenly feel very insecure. When children begin to feel the
thrill of being the boss, they also begin to feel very insecure
and demanding.
A demanding or “spoiled” child generally needs more time
outs. A spoiled teenager may need more than time out in his or
her room. In some cases, time spent with supervision in a
Children Are from Heaven
17
developing country, or in the woods with a guide, or staying
with a favorite aunt, uncle, or grandparent will help teenagers
regain their true self and their need for someone else to be
boss. By feeling out of control and depending on someone else,
a teenager is humbled. They can come back to feeling their
need for parents and the desire to please them.
To be secure, children should feel heard, but
always know that they are not the boss.
Children are basically programmed to one prime directive. Deep inside they only want to please their parents.
Positive parenting communication skills strengthen this
prime directive so that children are more willing to follow a
parent’s will and wish. To balance this yielding tendency,
children need permission to resist and say no. This resistance
allows them to develop a healthy sense of self.
Children who don’t get this opportunity go through
unnecessary rebellion around puberty. Although a teenager
still needs guidance in life, they feel huge urges just to do the
opposite of whatever is your will and wish, if they have not
developed a sense of self.
Many parents take it for granted that their children need
to pull away from them at this time and rebellion is perfectly
normal. Rebellion is only a normal reaction for children
who did not get the support needed at an earlier stage.
When children experience the permission to say no, but then
cooperate with their parents, they have a healthy sense of
self and don’t need to rebel at puberty. They still pull away,
but they don’t rebel and they keep coming back for love and
support.
Positive parenting also explores ways of improving com-
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munication with teenagers, who were not raised with these
five positive parenting messages. It is never too late to be a
great parent and inspire cooperation from your children. No
matter when you start, by applying the five messages of positive parenting, you will hold the power to improve communication, create cooperation, and draw from your children
the best they can be.
A VISION OF POSSIBILITIES
Even with a greater understanding of the five messages of
positive parenting, being a good parent is not easy. It is a
learn-as-you-go process. Parenting pushes you beyond your
limits of how much you thought you could give. Yet, no
matter how good you get, you always find yourself once
again in uncharted territory wondering: “What do I do
now?” A clear vision of possibilities is needed. Fortunately,
you can return to this guide again and again. When something doesn’t seem to be working, or you don’t know what
to do, review the different messages of positive parenting.
You will discover what is missing and be better equipped to
do the right thing.
As parents, we don’t get a lot of practice to prepare ourselves or to perfect our parenting abilities. Suddenly we are
faced with the awesome responsibility of caring for a vulnerable child, and we are not always certain what is best for
them. Even though we remind ourselves that children are
from heaven and that they have their own unique potential
destiny, their future is literally in our hands. How we hold
and care for them greatly influences their ability to succeed
in manifesting their full potential.
Parenting requires a tremendous commitment on our
part but our children are certainly worth it. Parents only
Children Are from Heaven
19
“back off” or withdraw from parenting when they don’t
know what to do or when what they do seems to make matters worse. Studying the easy-to-understand (but not always
easy-to-remember) principles of positive parenting will
always remind you that you are needed and that by making
a few adjustments you can succeed in giving your children
what they need.
Always remember that no one can do it better than you
can. Although your children come from heaven, they also
come from you and they need you. Learning how to parent
is the most worthwhile study a person can make if planning
to have a family. Without the understanding of positive parenting, most parents have no idea how important they are to
their children and their children’s future. Not only do their
children miss out, but they do as well.
Parenting is a difficult job, but it is also the most rewarding. To be a parent is an awesome responsibility and a great
honor. Now, with an awareness of what our children really
need from us, parents can fully understand how much their
help is needed. This clear insight into our responsibility
allows us to feel the true dignity of being a parent and to
take pride in doing what is required in caring for our family.
By fully committing yourself to the new principles of
positive parenting, you are a courageous pioneer exploring
new territory, a brave hero creating a new world and, most
important, you are giving your children the opportunities
for greatness that you never had.
Even with this guide by your side, you will still make
mistakes, but then you will be able to use your mistakes to
teach your children the important skill of forgiveness. We
can’t always give our children what they need or want, but
we can help them respond to their disappointments in
healthy ways that make them stronger and more confident.
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John Gray
You will still be unable to always be there when they need
you, but you will know how to react to their feelings and
unmet needs in a way that heals their emotional wounds and
makes them feel loved and supported once again. Using the
five messages of positive parenting and remembering that
children are from heaven, will help you give your children
the best preparation they could have to make all their
dreams come true, which is what all parents want for their
children.
2
What Makes
the Five Messages
Work
To apply the five messages of positive parenting, we first have to
understand the right conditions for them to work. These new
parenting skills will not work if we keep control of our children
with threats of spanking, punishment, or guilt. Fear-based parenting numbs our children’s ability to respond to positive parenting. On the other hand, if we don’t know how to replace
spanking and punishment with more positive ways to create
cooperation, the five messages will not work as well. It is not
enough just to stop punishing our children; we must apply new
skills to create cooperation, motivation, and control.
If parenting is based on fear, children will not respond to
the five messages. For this new approach to work, parents
must let go of outdated fear-based practices of parenting. To
flip back and forth doesn’t work. You can’t treat children as if
they are good and innocent in order to draw out their inner
greatness, and then spank them for being bad a week later.
It doesn’t work to treat children as if they are
good and innocent, and then spank them for
being bad a week later.
21
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John Gray
If we want our children to feel good about themselves,
we have to stop making them feel bad. If we want our children to feel confident, we have to stop controlling them with
fear. If we want our children to respect others, we must learn
how to show them the respect they deserve. Children learn
by example. If you manage them with violence, they will
resort to violence, or at least sometimes cruel or insensitive
behavior, when they don’t know what to do.
THE PRESSURE OF PARENTING
Because of the invention of Western psychology, we are now
much more aware of the profound influence childhood has
on our success later in life. Both our ability to create outer
success and our ability to be happy and fulfilled are heavily
influenced by early childhood circumstances and conditions.
Although we now accept this insight as common knowledge,
fifty years ago it was not common.
Before this new insight, how we parented was not a priority. Our success in life was attributed mainly to genes,
family status, hard work, opportunity, character, religious
affiliation, or luck. In Eastern cultures, which commonly
believe in past and future lives, past karma was also seen to
be the major contributing factor. If you were good in a past
life, then good things will happen for you in this life.
Certainly, parents have always loved their children, but how
they demonstrated that love with parenting skills was not
recognized to be that important.
Now, after fifty years of counseling psychology, we have
discovered the way parents demonstrate their love makes an
enormous difference to their children. With this increased
knowledge of the importance of childhood, parents today
feel much greater pressure and responsibility to find the best
Children Are from Heaven
23
way to parent their children. Often this pressure to be perfect parents leads them in the wrong direction.
Parents commonly make the mistake of focusing too
much on providing more. And what they are providing more
of is often counterproductive: more money, more toys, more
things, more entertainment, more education, more afterschool activities, more training, more help, more praise, more
time, more responsibility, more freedom, more discipline,
more supervision, more punishment, more permission, more
communication, etc. More of these things are not necessarily
what children today need most. As in other areas of life, more
is not always better. Instead of more, what children need is
“different.” As parents, we don’t have to give more, instead
we need an approach different from our parents’.
REINVENTING PARENTING
Today we are faced with the challenge of reinventing parenting. Instead of assuming responsibility to mold our children
into responsible and successful adults, it is becoming increasingly apparent that our role as parents is only to nurture
what is already there. Within every child are the seeds of
greatness. Our role is to provide a safe and nurturing environment to give that child a chance to develop and express
his or her potential.
Traditional parenting skills and approaches that were
appropriate in the past will not work for children today.
Children today are different. They are more in touch with
their feelings and thus more self-aware. With this shift in
awareness, their needs have changed as well. Every generation moves ahead to solve the problems of the past, but new
challenges emerge in making that step.
In any field of endeavor, we must make adjustments to
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John Gray
continue being successful. The needs of our children today are
different from previous generations’. As parents, we are now
facing a change that has been in the making for the last 2000
years. It is the shift from fear-based to love-based parenting.
Positive parenting is a shift from fear-based
to love-based parenting.
Positive parenting focuses on new approaches and strategies to motivate children with love and not through the fear
of punishment, humiliation, or the loss of love. Though this
sounds reasonable when compared to traditional approaches
to parenting, it is an extremely radical notion. Love-based
parenting is in conflict with our deepest instinctive reactions
when we feel that we are out of control or when we feel
afraid of losing control.
This love-based approach focuses on motivating children
to cooperate without using the fear of punishment. Every parent knows the automatic reaction of, “If you don’t stop, I
will . . .” And then comes the threat. Or the old fashioned
phrase, “If you don’t listen to me, I’ll tell your father when he
gets home.” Managing our children with fear, no matter how
much we don’t want to do it, is an automatic reaction. In many
schools today, teachers attempt to motivate their children to
do better by means of fear of college entrance exams. All this
fear just makes our children more anxious or depressed. Some
children are already preparing for college in first grade.
Giving up spanking, threatening, and punishing may
sound like a loving thing to do, but when your child is throwing a tantrum in the checkout line, and you just don’t know
what else to do, threatening or spanking seems to be the only
solution. When your child refuses to get dressed in the morn-
Children Are from Heaven
25
ing for school or resists brushing his teeth at night, automatically you resort to threats and punishment. Even if you don’t
want to use threats and punishment, when nothing else works
it is all you have. And it is all you have, because we haven’t yet
learned the skills of positive parenting.
When your child is throwing a tantrum in the
checkout line, you just don’t know what else
to do; threatening or spanking seems to be
the only solution.
It becomes possible to change our parenting approach
and to do it differently from the way we were raised only
when we find a new way that works. You can successfully
give up outdated fear-based parenting skills when you have
learned the new and necessary skills to awaken and draw
from your children the part of them that wants to cooperate
and is already motivated to behave in harmony with your
will and wish.
A SHORT HISTORY OF PARENTING
Thousands of years ago, children were treated worse than
we would treat animals today. If children disobeyed a parent, they were severely beaten or punished, and sometimes
even killed. Burial sites in Rome from two thousand years
ago have revealed the bodies of hundreds of thousands of
young boys who were beaten and killed by their fathers for
being disobedient. Over the years, we have moved away
from such extreme abusive and violent treatment.
Today most parents spank or hit their children only as a
last resort, when nothing else seems to work or when the
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John Gray
parent goes out of control. Still the legacy of the past holds
on. Even in a relatively peaceful home, children can be heard
saying, “If you do that you’ll be killed” or “They’ll kill you
for that.” Although, if questioned, these children don’t literally mean “killed,” but it is a clear indication of the influence of fear to create orderly or good behavior. Although we
have come a long way in the last two thousand years, the use
of fear remains entrenched.
Some parents still think their children need to be
spanked. I remember one dramatic example. Ten years ago, I
had a conversation with a taxi driver from Yugoslavia. He
mentioned that the problem in America is that parents are
too soft. They don’t beat their children. I asked him if he
was beaten. He was proud to say that is why he turned out
so well and so had his children. Neither he nor his children
had ever spent the night in jail. He went on to say that not a
day passed when he was growing up that he was not beaten.
As an adult, he was grateful for the beatings he had received.
He assured me that this was a common practice in his country and it had saved him from becoming a criminal.
This is an amazing psychological reaction. Quite often,
children who are severely beaten or abused will bond even
more with the abuser. Over time, they begin to justify the
abuse and feel they deserved it. Instead of recognizing what
they experienced as abuse, they defend their parents’ behavior.
When they have children, naturally they feel their children
deserve the same abuse. This is why it can be so difficult for
some parents to adjust to positive parenting. They hold on to
fear-based parenting, because they were punished and feel that
their children deserve it as well. They believe their rearing
helped them to be better citizens and so it will help their children. It is common to hear an abused child say, “I was so bad
that they had to beat me.”
Children Are from Heaven
27
Children who are severely beaten or abused
will bond with the abuser and defend the
abusive behavior.
Certainly, many more parents who were beaten now recognize this to be an outdated practice, but really don’t know
what else to do. Though they don’t like spanking or punishment, they don’t have an alternative. Other parents have
given up spanking, and as a result lose control of their children, or their children develop self-esteem issues. If we are to
give up spanking and punishing, we must replace them with
something that works effectively to manage children and
create cooperation.
VIOLENCE IN, VIOLENCE OUT
When children are receptive, feeling, and open, as children
are today, once violence goes in, it comes right out. There is
no doubt that when children are managed by using the
threat of violence, punishment, or guilt, they will resort to
violence, punishment, or guilt when they feel out of control
as a way to regain control. All the rampant dysfunctional
behavior and domestic violence in our society today is the
result of not knowing another way to deal with the strong
feelings that people feel.
When feelings were not so awakened, violence and punishment worked. But today the world is different. Parents
are more conscious and more feeling and so are their kids.
Without a new way of managing and controlling children,
they will become increasingly violent and continue to behave
in dysfunctional ways. Either they will act out in rebellious
and aggressive ways, or they will turn that violence inward
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John Gray
and abuse themselves with low self-esteem. Either they hate
others or they hate themselves, and often they feel both.
Children exposed to violence either hate
others or hate themselves.
I can only laugh when some experts say there are no scientific studies to prove that spanking makes children violent.
That is what they said when I began teaching Men Are from
Mars, Women Are from Venus more than fifteen years ago.
They asked, “Where are the studies to prove that men and
women are different?” It was just common sense.
Scientific studies are very useful to expand our awareness and insight, but when we become so dependent on scientific studies and ignore common sense we have gone too
far. Scientific inquiry then becomes as dangerous as the
superstition it helped society to escape. Fortunately, not all
scientists and researchers are so narrow-minded that they
easily dismiss common sense.
When we are dependent on scientific
studies and ignore common sense,
we have gone too far.
Although “violence in, violence out” is common sense, it
has also been shown through studies that exposure to violence makes children more violent. After the riots in Los
Angeles in 1989, different groups of children were shown
videotapes of the violence for three minutes. Afterward, they
played in another room where there were violent toys and
nonviolent toys.
Children Are from Heaven
29
When told that the violence on TV was just actors pretending to be violent, the children didn’t play with the violent toys but played with more neutral or nurturing toys.
When told that the violence on TV was real, almost all the
children played with violent toys. Aggression dramatically
increased. Watching real violence on TV clearly triggered
increased aggression in these children.
It is not until age fourteen that children or preteens have
the cognitive development fully to understand a hypothetical
situation. Even if a child or preteen is reminded that the players on TV are only pretending, he or she cannot remember for
long. And if they reminded, after five or ten minutes, they will
still emotionally respond as if it was real. Without the required
cognitive development, what a child feels is real becomes real.
When children witness violence or mean behavior on TV, they
lose, to some degree, the opportunity to develop a healthy
sense of innocence, serenity, and sensitivity.
When children are not over stimulated by
violence or meanness on TV, they are clearly
more secure, relaxed, and peaceful.
If a parent decides a movie is okay for their preteen, but
still has some doubts, then it is better to have their preteen
watch it when it comes out on video. Video, in the home with
the lights on, has much less of an impact than a dark movie
theater with a bigger-than-life screen. A theater increases an
adult’s ability to suspend his or her disbelief and to experience
the emotional ups and downs of the movie. Movie theaters are
designed for adults to forget what is real, so they can temporarily feel as if the movie is real. For children, we want them
to remember that that what they are watching is not real.
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John Gray
Too many movies or too much TV, even without violence and mean acts, can be over stimulating to children.
One of the most common reasons children act out or can’t
control themselves. Children learn primarily by imitation.
What they see is what they do. Too much sensory input
overwhelms their nervous system, and they become irritable,
demanding, moody, hyper, whinny, too sensitive, and uncooperative. Too much stimulation is not a healthy influence.
Yet, many of the very people that complain loudest
about violence on TV will turn around and threaten their
children with violence and punishment. Yet they are right.
Violence on TV and in the movies does influence our children and teenagers, but this conclusion about TV is misleading, because the influence of the parent and their philosophy
and practice of parenting is much greater.
Parents have a much greater influence on
their children than does TV.
When children are raised to believe they are bad and
they deserve punishment, violence on TV and in the movies
has a much greater negative impact. When children are
raised without spanking, punishment, or guilt, they are still
influenced by violent programming, but at least they are less
attracted to it. Parents should be diligent in protecting their
children from the influence of too much sex and violence in
the movies and on TV.
The power to raise healthy children is within the parents’
reach. We cannot fully blame the problem of increasing youth
violence on Hollywood. Hollywood only provides what we
want to see. As long as children are raised with fear and guilt,
they will continue to want the violence Hollywood offers.
Children Are from Heaven
31
WHY CHILDREN BECOME UNRULY AND DISRUPTIVE
There are clear reasons why children in schools today are more
unruly, disrespectful, aggressive, and violent. It is not a big
mystery. When children are overstimulated by aggression or
the threat of punishment at home, it creates hyperactivity in
boys—or what is now diagnosed as Attention Deficit Disorder.
In girls, aggressive tendencies are acted out against themselves
with feelings of low self-esteem and eating disorders.
Go into any prison, and you will find that all violent
offenders, without exception, have been severely punished
or beaten as children. The abuse they have suffered is heartbreaking just as the abuse they inflicted on their victims is
heartbreaking. Yet even outside the prisons and in the counseling office, many millions of people suffer from depression, anxiety, apathy, and other emotional disorders as a
result of fear-based parenting.
On the other hand, there are many children today who
are disruptive and impaired from the affects of “soft” parenting. Traditional parents are correct in being skeptical
about modern soft-parenting approaches. Although the
intent to be love-based is present, the skills to make it effective are not being practiced. The freedom and power given
by the five messages must be balanced by equally powerful
skills to maintain control over children and create cooperation. If you want to drive a fast car, you must make sure you
have great brakes. You can’t give children more freedom
unless you have the skills to restrain them so that they
behave in an orderly manner.
You can’t give children more freedom unless
you have the skills to restrain them so that
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they behave in an orderly manner.
Many parents who were mistreated as children resolved
never to hit, spank, degrade, or punish their children. They
knew what didn’t work and, to be better parents, stopped
doing it. The problem is they didn’t know how to replace the
old fear-based practices with love-based skills. Refusing to
discipline their children in many cases spoiled their children.
This kind of soft parenting is just as ineffective as traditional
fear-based approaches.
Giving up past fear-based techniques only works when
you replace them with something else that is more effective.
Although children today have new needs, they still need a
parent who is in control. Otherwise, no matter how much
you love your child, the child goes out of control.
Positive parenting uses the practice of making the child
take a time out in a variety of ways which are age appropriate to replace the need to spank or punish. Even then, time
outs are used as a last measure. Long before resorting to a
time out, there are many other skills to be applied so that a
time out works. Otherwise, it just becomes another fearbased punishment and loses its effectiveness.
Positive parenting uses the practice of time
outs to replace the need to spank or punish.
In light of an alternative way of parenting our children
without fear or guilt, we really need to stop and consider why
anyone deserves to be beaten or feel pain because they have
made a mistake. No one ever deserves punishment. Everyone
Children Are from Heaven
33
deserves to be loved and supported. Even in the past, no one
ever deserved punishment, but it was the only way to regain
and maintain control. Punishment and spanking helped parents keep the upper hand and control their children. Today,
punishment and spanking have the opposite effect.
In the past, punishment maintained control,
but today it has the opposite effect.
In the past, children did not have the capacity within themselves to know what was right or wrong. The fear of punishment was necessary to deter them from misbehaving. The
more resistant children were, the more punishment they
received. Punishment was needed to break their will. It is precisely this kind of strategy that would allow people to tolerate
and even support the abuses of tyrants and dictators throughout history. Weak-willed people will allow abuse. Fortunately,
times have changed and Western society will not tolerate and
support abusive tyrants. Just as society has changed, so have
our children. Our children will not be broken, but will continue to rebel in response to spanking and punishment.
If you are still against giving up spanking and punishing,
ask yourself this question: If there was another way to have
the same or even better effect that didn’t involve fear, punishment, or guilt, would you consider it? Of course you
would. We cling to fear, punishment, and guilt only because
we don’t know another way. As you read on to learn these
new non–fear-based techniques, they will not only make
sense, but will also work. That is the whole point. We are
not exploring the philosophical pros and cons of parenting
approaches. We are talking about an alternative approach
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that will start working right away.
Thousands of people in my seminars and workshops on
parenting have already started to use this approach with
success. It not only works, but it feels right in your heart. Let
your heart and common sense give you the confidence and
courage to move ahead in giving up outdated parenting tactics and begin using these new skills of positive parenting.
A GLOBAL SHIFT IN CONSCIOUSNESS
During the twentieth century, Western psychology developed
in response to the new needs of the collective consciousness.
Prior to the last hundred years, an introspective exploration
of our inner feelings, desires, and needs was not that important. People were more concerned with their survival and
security and not worried about how they felt. Most people
were not even aware of their feelings. To a great degree,
most people were not even aware of their psychological and
emotional needs.
Just as the world has changed, our children have as well.
Many times, my children are more articulate and aware of
their inner feelings than I am of mine. We have all been born at
a time of tremendous change in global consciousness. As the
collective consciousness of society has shifted, our inner world
has become more important. The attributes of love, compassion, cooperation, and forgiveness are no longer lofty concepts
for philosophers and spiritual leaders, they are daily experiences. The behaviors and practices of people in power that
were once acceptable are now seen to be abusive.
The attributes of love, compassion,
cooperation, and forgiveness are no longer
lofty concepts for philosophers and spiritual
Children Are from Heaven
35
leaders, they are daily experiences.
History is filled with atrocities of human conscience.
Throughout the Dark Ages, different religious and political
institutions were responsible for brutally murdering and torturing millions of innocent men, women, and children simply
because they had different beliefs about God or chose natural
herbs to heal their bodies. These atrocities have continued even
into the twentieth century. Yet today, most people oppose
them. Since human consciousness has evolved, justifying these
kind of atrocities has become almost unthinkable.
You don’t really need to be taught anymore that killing,
stealing, raping, and pillaging is wrong. Your conscience
tells you these are not right. No one really needs to convince
you. In a similar way, it is unlikely that you would allow a
political leader to start a war, dominate a country, and steal
all of its precious cultural and art objects. Yet today we have
museums around the world that are filled with stolen objects
or the “spoils of war.” This kind of psychopathic egocentric
behavior was acceptable just fifty years ago.
As the collective consciousness of society changes, conscience evolves, as well as intelligence. When people are not
capable of knowing what is right or wrong, they need lots of
rules which then must be enforced with punishment. If one
is capable of developing a conscience, then the need for punishment is outdated. Rather than focus on teaching children
what is right and wrong, positive parenting is more focused
on awakening and developing children’s innate ability to
know within themselves what is right and what is wrong.
Rather than teach what is right or wrong,
teach how to know within yourself what is
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right or wrong.
Having a conscience is the ability to know within ourselves
what is right or wrong. It is like having an inner compass that
always points us in the right direction. We don’t always have
all the answers, but our inner compass will always point ourselves in the right direction. In the past, some people have
described conscience as listening to a quiet inner voice. That
was the only way they could describe something that most
everyone now experiences. We now just say, “I had a feeling.”
Feelings are the doorway through which our inner soul or
spirit communicates to us. When people are “stuck in their
heads,” all they can do is follow the rules and punish those
who don’t. People with open hearts are able just to know what
is right for them. This same inner knowing, when applied to
interpreting the world, is called intuition. When applied to
problem solving, it is called creativity. When applied to relationships, it is the capacity to love (or recognize a person’s
goodness) without conditions and forgive. Developing the
mind is certainly important, but developing a conscience is the
most precious gift parents can give to their children.
All parents want their children to know what is right
and then on that basis, to act wisely. Until this global shift in
consciousness occurred, that was not possible. Parents
employed punishment and other fear- and guilt-based strategies to deter children from being bad and motivate them to
be good. Today children are born with a new potential to
develop this inner knowing. Their sensitivity gives them this
ability, but it can cause them to self-destruct when outdated
fear-based strategies are employed. Whatever treatment goes
in either comes right back out or becomes self-directed.
Children Are from Heaven
37
Children today tend to self-destruct in
response to fear-based parenting.
Every child born today has the innate ability to know
what is right and wrong. They have the potential to develop
a conscience, but that ability must be nurtured if it is to
come out.
Positive-parenting practices awaken that inner potential
in our children. The result of being connected to an inner
conscience is that our children are well behaved but not
mindlessly obedient. They respect others, not out of fear, but
because it feels good. They are willing to and capable of
negotiating. They can think for themselves. They are willing
to challenge authority figures. They are creative, cooperative, competent, compassionate, confident, and loving. By
learning and applying positive-parenting skills, not only
does parenting get easier and easier for us, but the rewards
for our children are so much greater. There is no greater
reward in life than seeing your children succeed in making
their dreams come true and feeling good about themselves.
3
New Skills to
Create Cooperation
The sooner you experience the power of positive parenting,
the easier it is to give up fear-based parenting skills. Just give
yourself one week to practice the ideas in this chapter, and
you will never want to go back. Remember that for positive
parenting to work you can’t revert back to punishing or
threatening your children. You will find that your children
will magically begin to respond. This is true for children of
all ages. Even your teenagers will respond. The earlier you
start, the more quickly your children will respond. When
children or teenagers are used to being controlled by fear, it
can take a little longer, but it still works. It is never too late
to apply these positive-parenting skills. In many cases, they
are skills that will help you communicate better with your
spouse as well.
ASK, BUT DON’T ORDER OR DEMAND
To create cooperation is to instill in children a willingness to
listen and to respond to your requests. The first step is to learn
how to direct your children most effectively. Consistent ordering does not work. Think about your own experience at work.
Would you like someone always telling you what to do? A
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Children Are from Heaven
39
child’s day is filled with hundreds of orders. It is no wonder
that mothers complain their children don’t listen. Wouldn’t
you just tune out if someone nagged you all the time?
A child’s life is filled with orders, for example: Put this
away, don’t leave that there, don’t talk to your brother that
way, stop hitting your sister, tie your shoes, button your
shirt, go brush your teeth, turn off the TV, come to dinner,
tuck in your shirt, eat your vegetables, use your fork, don’t
play with your food, stop talking, clean up your room, clean
up this mess, sshh, get ready for bed, go to bed now, get
your sister, walk—don’t run, don’t throw things in the
house, watch out, don’t drop that, stop yelling—and on and
on, again and again. Just as parents become frustrated nagging a child over and over, the child just tunes the parents
out. Repetitive orders weaken the lines of communication.
The positive-parenting alternative skill to ordering,
demanding, and nagging is asking or requesting. Wouldn’t
you rather be asked by your boss (or spouse) rather than be
told? Not only do you respond better, but your children will
as well. It is a very simple shift but it takes lots of practice.
For example, instead of saying, “Go brush your teeth,” say,
“Would you go brush your teeth?” Instead of saying, “Don’t
hit your brother,” say, “Would you please stop hitting him
now?”
USE “WOULD YOU” AND NOT “COULD YOU”
Make sure that, when phrasing your request you use the words
“will” or “would” instead of “can” or “could.” “Will you”
works wonders, while “could you” or “can you” creates resistance and confusion. When you say, “Would you clean up this
mess?” you are making a request. When you say, “Could you
clean up this mess?” you are posing a question about compe-
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John Gray
tence. You are asking, “Do you have the ability to clean up this
mess?” To motivate cooperation, you have to be very direct
and very clear about what you want. You must first present
your request in a way that evokes cooperation.
It is fine to say, “Could you clean up this mess?” if you
are really asking about their competence. If you are asking a
child to do something, be direct. Most of the time parents
will say “could you” as a way of ordering their children
with a little guilt tossed in. Most often parents do so because
that is how their parents behaved and it is automatic.
Although it may seem like a little thing, how you ask makes
a huge difference in children’s willingness to cooperate.
“Could you clean up this mess?” is not a
request; it is an order with a lot of confusing
indirect messages thrown in.
Regardless of intent, when a parent speaks in a bothered, frustrated, disappointed, or upset tone and uses “could
you” or “can you,” a child may receive indirect messages. If
the parent says, “Could you clean up this mess?” the child
may hear any of the following messages:
“You should clean up this mess.”
“You should have already cleaned up this mess.”
“I shouldn’t have to ask you.”
“I have asked you before to clean up your messes.”
“You are not doing the things I have asked you to do.”
“You are not acting your age.”
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“You are a real pain to me.”
“Something is wrong with you.”
“I am in a big hurry and I can’t do everything.”
Although none of these messages may be directly intended,
it is what children hear. All this indirectness and guilt sabotages the possible results of positive parenting. After you practice these techniques, you will find that directness without guilt
or fear is much more effective.
To understand this more clearly, let’s imagine you could
map the activity in children’s brains. When you ask a “could
you” question, there would probably be activity in his left
brain wondering what exactly you mean. If you use “will”
or “would,” there would be activity in the right brain and
the motivation center would be activated.
Using “will” or “would” bypasses much
of children’s resistance and invites him
to participate.
Take a moment to pretend that you are a child hearing
either of these two different questions: “Could you go to bed
and stop talking?” or “Would you go to bed and stop talking?” At first, it feels like the “could you” phrase is more
polite. “Would you go to bed and stop talking?” seems more
authoritarian and may be too controlling. Then, as you continue to feel the difference, “could” sounds nice but there is
also a hidden order saying, “I am asking you nicely but
you’d better do it or else.” Then, as you continue to consider
“Would you go to bed and stop talking?” it seems to be
inviting you to cooperate. If you want to object, you are free
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John Gray
to. Clearly, this is the message we want to give our children.
When we just order our children, we actually prevent them
from learning to be cooperative.
These little word changes make a world of difference,
particularly with little boys. “Would” and “will” not only
work better with little boys, but also with grown men as
well. Women tend to resist asking, and, when they do, they
often do it in indirect ways. Not only do men need this
directness, but children need it even more.
To use “could” and “can” sends confusing messages and
gradually numbs children’s willingness to cooperate. You are
the parent. You would not be asking her if you didn’t already
believe that she could do the very thing you are asking. When
you ask, “Could you turn off the TV?” you are not really asking if they have the ability to turn off the TV. You want them
to turn off the TV, and you’re giving an unspoken message that
they have no good reason if they don’t turn it off.
Although it sounds polite to use “